5 Great Editorial Tools for Your Startup Blog

If you’ve ever run a startup then you already know that your mind has hundreds of thoughts throughout the day. With so many thoughts, not to mention all of the other work that goes into running a startup, it’s easy to forget about maintaining your blog.

Thankfully, technology has made it a cinch to collect ideas, collaborate with team members, and publish blog posts through editorial tools - which back in the day just meant using a spreadsheet. However, with so many different editorial tools that have varying purposes, which tools would work best for a startup?

There are a couple of reasons why Google Apps is such an incredible editorial tool. For starters, it’s free - there is also Google Apps for Work for $5 per month. Besides not having to pay a monthly fee, Google Apps are also easy-to-use and have been designed to be used for collaborative work. For example, you can create a spreadsheet that contains blog headlines, publish dates, targeted keywords, the team members working on specific projects, and the statuses of the post. You can share all of this information between team members.

On top of spreadsheets, you have access to a full office suite, including documents and presentations which can also be passed along to team members who can edit or add to the blog post. You also keep organized by using the simply designed 'Google Calendar,' to schedule blog posts.

Speaking of WordPress, 'CoSchedule,' is another option. However, it’s not a plugin for WordPress. Instead, it’s a standalone app that gives you the ability to sync the content from your blog with all of your social media accounts. By integrating with social media, you can promote your blog posts in one convenient location.

This tool also lets your directly publish posts onto your blog and give access to an unlimited amount of people. For a mere $10 a month you can utilize this nifty editorial tool.

Marketing.ai was designed by content marketers for content marketers. While there is the standard editorial calendar, this tool has a number of unique features that make it stand out from other editorial tools.

One of the first features that I noticed was the ability to have a separate location for ideas, which is great for assisting during brainstorming sessions. Another feature is being able to assign, approve, and publish topics. There’s even an analytics feature so that you can track the performance of your blog posts. Finally, Marketing.Ai can integrate with LinkedIn, WordPress, Facebook, Twitter, Bitly, and many more.

There’s a 30-day free trial, but after that you pay $749. That may sound pricey, but considering companies like Kapost start packages at $2,000 per month, this is a pretty decent deal.

If you want a more robust editorial tool, then Trello has you covered. Tasks are organized by cards, boards and lists, as opposed to just the run-of-the-mill editorial calendar. This means that you can create a board for your blog and then use cards and lists for each topic, such as ideas, tasks, and due dates. If you’re collaborating with others, they’ll receive an email if there are any reminders.

Thanks to the the Trello app you can manage your boards when you’re out and about. You can even create boards via email. In short, Trello is a failsafe tool if you don’t always have access to a desktop or laptop. Best of all? Trello promises to keep this tool free, “now and forever.”

Disclosure: I'm an investor in Marketing.ai. They are pretty awesome so I had to mention them as I started using them and found them so amazing I invested in them.